SOLDIER PRIESTS

‘Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the
beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.’—PSALM
cx. 3.

It is no part of my present purpose to establish the reference
of this psalm to our Lord. We have Christ’s own authority for that.

It does not seem to be typical—that is to say, it does not appear
to have had a lower application to a king of Israel who was a shadow of the true
monarch, but rather to refer only to the coming Sovereign, whom David was helped
to discern, indeed, by his own regal office, but whose office and character, as
here set forth, far surpass anything belonging to him or to his dynasty. The attributes
of the King, the union in His case of the royal and priestly dignities, His seat
at the right hand of God, His acknowledged supremacy over the greatest Jewish ruler,
who here calls him ‘my Lord,’ His eternal dominion, His conquest of many nations,
and His lifting up of His head in triumphant rule that knows no end—all these characteristics
seem to forbid the possibility of a double reference, and to demand the acknowledgment
of a distinct and exclusive prophecy of Christ.

Taking that for granted without more words, it strikes one as
remarkable that this description of the subjects of the Priest-King should be thus
imbedded in the very heart of the grand portraiture of the monarch Himself. It is
the anticipation of the profound New Testament thought of the unity of Christ and
His Church. By simple faith a union is brought about so close and intimate that
all His is theirs, and the picture of His glory is incomplete without the vision
of ‘the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.’
Therefore, between the word of God which elevates Him to His right hand, and the
oath of God which consecrates Him a priest for ever, is this description of the
army of the King.

The full force of the words will, I hope, appear as we advance.
For the present it will be enough to say that there are really in our text three
co-ordinate clauses, all descriptive of the subjects of the monarch, regarded as
a band of warriors—and that the main ideas are these:—the subjects are willing
soldiers; the soldiers are priests; the priest-soldiers are as dew upon the earth.
Or, in other words, we have here the very heart of the Christian character set forth
as being willing consecration; then we have the work which Christian men have to
do, and the spirit in which they are to do it, expressed in that metaphor of their
priestly attire; and then we have their refreshing and quickening influence upon
the world.

I. The subjects of the Priest-King are willing soldiers.

In accordance with the warlike tone of the whole psalm, our text
describes the subjects as an army. That military metaphor comes out more clearly
when we attach the true meaning to the words, ‘in the day of Thy power.’ The word
rendered, and rightly rendered, ‘power,’ has the same ambiguity which that word
has in the English of the date of our translation, and for a century later, as you
may find in Shakespeare and Milton, who both used it in the sense of ‘army.’ Singularly
enough we do not employ ‘powers’ in that meaning, but we do another word which means
the same thing—and talk of ‘forces,’ meaning thereby ‘troops.’ By the way, what
a melancholy sign it is of the predominance of that infernal military spirit, that
it should have so leavened language, that the ‘forces’ of a nation means its soldiers,
its embattled energies turned to the work of destruction. But the phrase is so used
here. ‘The day of Thy power’ is not a mere synonym for ‘the time of Thy might,’
but means specifically ‘the day of Thine army,’ that is, ‘the day when Thou dost
muster Thy forces and set them in array for the war.’

The King is going forth to conquest. But He goes not alone. Behind
Him come His faithful followers, all pressing on with willing hearts and high courage.
Then, to begin with, the warfare which He wages is one not confined to Him. Alone
He offers the sacrifice by which He atones; but, as we shall see, we too are priests.
He rules, and His servants rule with Him. But ere that time comes, they are to be
joined with Him in the great warfare by which He wins the earth for Himself. ‘As
Captain of the Lord’s host am I now come.’ He wins no conquests for Himself; and
now that He is exalted at God’s right hand, He wins none by Himself. We have to
do His work, we have to fight His battles as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. By power
derived from Him, but wielded by ourselves; with courage inspired by Him, but filling
our hearts; not as though He needed us, but inasmuch as He is pleased to use us,
we have to wage warfare for and to please Him who hath chosen us to be soldiers.
The Captain of our salvation sits at the right hand of God, expecting till His enemies
be made His footstool. He has bidden us to keep the field and fight the fight. From
His height He watches the conflict—nay, He is with us while we wage it. So long
as we strike for Him, so long is it His power that teaches our hands to war. Our
King’s flag is committed to our care; but we are not left to defend it alone. In
indissoluble unity, the King and the subjects, the Chief and His vassals, the Captain
and His soldiers, are knit together—and wheresoever His people are, in all the
danger and hardships of the long struggle, there is He, to keep their heads in the
day of battle, and make them more than conquerors.

Then, again, that warfare is shared in by all the subjects. It
is a levy en masse—an armed nation. The whole of the people are embodied
for the battle. It is not the work of a select few, but of every one who calls Christ
‘Lord,’ to be His faithful servant and soldier. Whatever varieties of occupation
may be set us by Him, one purpose is to be kept in view and one end to be effected
by them all. Every Christian man is bound to strive for the reduction of all human
hearts under Christ’s dominion. The tasks may be different, but the result should
be one. Some of us have to toil in the trenches, some of us to guard the camp, some
to lead the assault, some to stay by the stuff and keep the communications open.
Be it so. We are all soldiers, and He alone has to determine our work. We are responsible
for the spirit of it, He for its success.

Again, there are no mercenaries in these ranks, no pressed
men. The soldiers are all volunteers. ‘Thy people shall be willing.’ Pause for a
moment upon that thought.

Dear brethren! there are two kinds of submission and service.
There is submission because you cannot help it, and there is submission because
you like it. There is a sullen bowing down beneath the weight of a hand which you
are too feeble to resist, and there is a glad surrender to a love which it would
be a pain not to obey. Some of us feel that we are shut in by immense and sovereign
power which we cannot oppose. And yet, like some raging rebel in a dungeon, or some
fluttering bird in a cage, we beat ourselves, all bruised and bloody, against the
bars in vain attempts at liberty, alternating with fits of cowed apathy as we slink
into a corner of our cell. Some of us, thank God! feel that we are enclosed on every
side by that mighty Hand which none can resist, and from which we would not stray
if we could, and we joyfully hide beneath its shelter, and gladly obey when it points.
Constrained obedience is no obedience. Unless there be the glad surrender of the
will and heart, there is no surrender at all. God does not want compulsory submission.
He does not care to rule over people who are only crushed down by greater power.
He does not count that those serve who sullenly acquiesce because they dare not
oppose. Christ seeks for no pressed men in His ranks. Whosoever does not enlist
joyfully is not reckoned as His. And the question comes to us, brethren!—What is
my relation to that loving Lord, to that Redeemer King? Do I submit because His
love has won my heart, and it would be a pang not to serve Him; or do I submit because
I know Him strong, and am afraid to refuse? If the former, all is well; He calls
us ‘not servants but friends.’ If the latter, all is wrong; we are not subjects,
but enemies.

There is another idea involved in this description. The soldiers
are not only marked by glad obedience, but that obedience rests upon the sacrifice
of themselves. The word here rendered ‘willing’ is employed throughout the Levitical
law for ‘freewill offerings.’ And if we may venture to bring that reference in here,
it carries us a step farther in this characterisation of the army. This glad submission
comes from self-consecration and surrender. It is in that host as it was in the
army whose heroic self-devotion was chaunted by Deborah under her palm-tree, ‘The
people willingly offered themselves.’ Hence came courage, devotion, victory. With
their lives in their hands they flung themselves on the foe, and nothing could stand
against the onset of men who recked not of themselves. There is one grand thing
even about the devilry of war—the transcendent self-abnegation with which, however
poor and unworthy may be the cause, a man casts himself away, ‘what time the foeman’s
line is broke.’ The poorest, vulgarest, most animal natures rise for a moment into
something like nobility, as the surge of the strong emotion lifts them to that height
of heroism. Life is then most glorious when it is given away for a great cause.
That sacrifice is the one noble and chivalrous element which gives interest to war—the
one thing that can be disentangled from its hideous associations, and can be transferred
to higher regions of life. That spirit of lofty consecration and utter self-forgetfulness
must be ours, if we would be Christ’s soldiers. Our obedience will then be glad
when we feel the force of, and yield to, that gentle, persuasive entreaty, ‘I beseech
you, brethren! by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.’
There is ‘one Sacrifice for sin for ever’—which never can be repeated, nor exhausted,
nor copied. And the loving, faithful acceptance of that sacrifice of propitiation
leads our hearts to the response of thank-offering, the sacrifice and surrender
of ourselves to Him who has given Himself not only to, but for us. It cannot be
recompensed, but it may be acknowledged. Let us give ourselves to Christ, for He
has died for us. Let us give ourselves to Christ, for only in such surrender do
we truly find ourselves. Let us give ourselves to Christ, for such a sacrifice makes
all life fair and noble, and that altar sanctifies the gift. Let us give ourselves
to Christ, for without such sacrifice we have no place in the host whom He leads
to victory. ‘Thy people shall be willing offerings in the day of Thy power.’

Still further, another remarkable idea may be connected with this
word. By a natural transition, of which illustrations may be found in other languages,
it comes to mean ‘free,’ and also ‘noble.’ As, for instance, it is
used in the fifty-first Psalm, ‘Uphold me with Thy free Spirit’—and in the
forty-seventh, ‘The princes of the people are gathered together.’ And does
not this shading of significations—willing sacrifices, free, princely—remind
us of another distinctly evangelical principle, that the willing service which rests
upon glad consecration raises him who renders it to true freedom and dominion? Every
man enlisted in His body-guard is noble. The Prince’s servants are every other person’s
master. The King’s livery exempts from all other submission. As in the old Saxon
monarchies, the monarch’s domestics were nobles, the men of Christ’s household are
ennobled by their service. They who obey Him are free from every yoke of bondage—‘free
indeed.’ All things serve the soul that serves Christ. ‘He hath made us kings unto
God.’

II. The soldiers are priests.

That expression, ‘in the beauties of holiness,’ is usually read
as if it belonged either to the words immediately preceding, or to those immediately
following. But in either case the connection is somewhat difficult and obscure.
It seems better regarded as a distinct and separate clause, adding a fresh trait
to the description of the army, and what that is we need not find any difficulty
in ascertaining. ‘The beauties of holiness’ is a frequent phrase for the sacerdotal
garments, the holy festal attire of the priests of the Lord. So considered, how
beautifully it comes in here! The conquering King whom the psalm hymns is a Priest
for ever; and He is followed by an army of priests. The soldiers are gathered in
the day of the muster, with high courage and willing devotion, ready to fling away
their lives; but they are clad not in mail, but in priestly robes—like those who
wait before the altar rather than like those who plunge into the fight—like those
who compassed Jericho with the ark for their standard, and the trumpets for all
their weapons. We can scarcely fail to remember the words which echo these and interpret
them: ‘The armies which were in heaven followed Him on white horses, clothed in
fine linen, white and clean’—a strange armour against sword-cut and spear-thrust.

The main purpose, then, of this part of our text seems to be to
bring out the priestly character of the Christian soldier—a thought which carries
with it many important considerations, on which I can barely touch.

Mark, then, how the warfare which we have to wage is the same
as the priestly service which we have to render. The conflict is with our own sin
and evil; the sacrifice we have to offer is ourselves. As soldiers, we have to fight
against our selfish desires and manifold imperfections; as priests, we have to lay
our whole selves on His altar. The task is the same under either emblem. We have
a conflict to wage in the world, and in the world we have a priestly work to do,
and these are the same. We have to be God’s representatives in the world, bringing
Him nearer to men’s apprehensions and hearts by word and work. We have to bring
men to God by entreaty, and by showing the path which leads to Him. That priestly
service for men is in effect identical with the merciful warfare which we have to
wage in the world. The Church militant is an army of priests. Its warfare is its
sacerdotal function. It fights for Christ when it opposes the message of His grace
and the power of His blood to its own and the world’s sins—and when it intercedes
in the secret place for the coming of His kingdom.

Does not this metaphor teach us also, what is to be our defence
and our weapon in this warfare? Not with garments rolled in blood, nor with brazen
armour do they go forth, who follow Him that conquered by dying. Their uniform is
the beauties of holiness, ‘the fine linen clean and white, which is the righteousness
of saints.’ Many great thoughts lie in such words, which I must pass over. But this
one thing is obvious—that the great power which we Christian men are to wield in
our loving warfare is—character. Purity of heart and life, transparent simple
goodness, manifest in men’s sight—these will arm us against dangers, and these
will bring our brethren glad captives to our Lord. We serve Him best, and advance
His kingdom most, when the habit of our souls is that righteousness with which He
invests our nakedness. Be like your Lord, and as His soldiers you will conquer,
and as His priests you will win some to His love and fear. Nothing else will avail
without that. Without that dress no man finds a place in the ranks.

The image suggests, too, the spirit in which our priestly warfare
is to be waged. The one metaphor brings with it thoughts of strenuous effort, of
discipline, of sworn consecration to a cause. The other brings with it thoughts
of gentleness and sympathy and tenderness, of still waiting at the shrine, of communion
with Him who dwells between the Cherubim. Whilst our work demands all the courage
and tension of every power which the one image presents, it is to be sedulously
guarded from any tinge of wrath or heat of passion, such as mingles with conflict,
and is to be prosecuted with all the pity and patience, the brotherly meekness of
a true priest. ‘The wrath of men worketh not the righteousness of God.’ If we forget
the one character in the other, we shall bring weakness into our warfare, and pollution
into our sacrifice. ‘The servant of the Lord must not strive.’ We must not be animated
by mere pugnacious desire to advance our principles, nor let the heat of human eagerness
give a false fervour to our words and work. We cannot scold nor dragoon men to love
Jesus Christ. We cannot drive them into the fold with dogs and sticks. We are to
be gentle, long-suffering, not doing our work with passion and self-will, but remembering
that gentleness is mightiest, and that we shall best ‘adorn the doctrine of God
our Saviour’ when we go among men with the light caught in the inner sanctuary still
irradiating our faces, and our hands full of blessings to bestow on our brethren.
We are to be soldier-priests, strong and gentle, like the ideal of those knights
of old who were both, and bore the cross on shield and helmet and sword-hilt.

He, our Lord, is our pattern for both; and from Him we derive
the strength for each. He is the Captain of our salvation, and we fight beneath
His banner, and by His strength. He is a merciful and faithful High Priest, and
He consecrates His brethren to the service of the sanctuary. To Him look for your
example of heroism, of fortitude, of self-forgetfulness. To Him look for your example
of gentle patience and dewy pity. Learn in Christ how possible it is to be strong
and mild, to blend in fullest harmony the perfection of all that is noble, lofty,
generous in the soldier’s ardour of heroic devotion; and of all that is calm, still,
compassionate, tender in the priest’s waiting before God and mediation among men.
And remember, that by faith only do we gain the power of copying that blessed example,
to be like which is to be perfect—not to be like which is to fail wholly, and to
prove that we have no part in His sacrifice, nor any share in His victory.

III. The final point in this description must now engage us for
a few moments. The soldier-priests are as dew upon the earth.

‘From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth.’
These words are often misunderstood, and taken to be a description of the fresh,
youthful energy attributed by the psalm to the Priest-King of this nation of soldier-priests.
The misunderstanding, I suppose, has led to the common phrase, ‘The dew of one’s
youth.’ But the reference of the expression is to the army, not to its leader. ‘Youth’
here is a collective noun, equivalent to ‘young men.’ The host of His soldier-subjects
is described as a band of young warriors whom He leads, in their fresh strength
and countless numbers and gleaming beauty, like the dew of the morning.

There are two points in this last clause which may occupy us for
a few moments—that picture of the army as a band of youthful warriors; and that
lovely emblem of the dew as applied to Christ’s servants.

As to the former—there are many other words of Scripture which
carry the same thought, that he who has fellowship with God, and lives in the constant
reception of the supernatural life and grace which come from Jesus Christ, possesses
the secret of perpetual youth. The world ages us, time and physical changes tell
on us all, and the strength which belongs to the life of nature ebbs away, but the
life eternal is subject to no laws of decay and owes nothing to the external world.
So we may be ever young in heart and spirit. It is possible for a man to carry the
freshness, the buoyancy, the elastic cheerfulness, the joyful hope of his earliest
days, right on through the monotony of middle-aged maturity, and even into old age,
unshadowed by the lonely reflection of the tombs which the setting sun casts over
the path. It is possible for us to get younger as we get older, because we drink
more full draughts of the fountain of life: and so to have to say at the last, ‘Thou
hast kept the good wine until now.’ ‘Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and
the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength.’ If we live near Christ, and draw our life from Him, then we may blend
the hopes of youth with the experience and memory of age; be at once calm and joyous,
wise and strong, preserving the blessedness of each stage of life into that which
follows, and thus at last possessing the sweetness and the good of all at once.
We may not only bear fruit in old age, but have blossoms, fruit, and flowers—the
varying product and adornment of every stage of life, united in our characters.

Then, with regard to the other point in this final clause—that
emblem of the dew leads to many considerations upon which I can but inadequately
touch.

It comes into view here, I suppose, mainly for the sake of its
effect upon the earth. It is as a symbol of the refreshing which a weary world will
receive from the conquests and presence of the King and His host, that the latter
are likened to the glittering morning dew. Another prophetic Scripture gives us
the same emblem when it speaks of Israel being ‘in the midst of many people as a
dew from the Lord.’ Such ought to be the effect of our presence. We are meant to
gladden, to adorn, to refresh, this parched, prosaic world, with a freshness brought
from the chambers of the sunrise.

It is worth while to notice how we may discern a sequence of thought
in these successive features of description in our text. It began with that inmost
spirit and motive of the Christian life, the submission of will and consecration
of self to Christ. It advanced to the function and character of His servants in
the world. And now it deals finally with the influence which they are to exert by
this their soldier-like obedience and priestly ministration.

There is progress of thought, too, in another way. We began with
a symbol that had in it something almost harsh and stern. We advanced to one in
which there was a predominance of gentle and gracious thoughts and images. And now
all that was severe, and all that reminded either of opposition or of effort, has
melted away into this sweet emblem. Instead of the ‘confused noise’ of the battle
of the warrior, we have the silence of the dawn, and the noiseless falling of the
dew amid the solitudes of the wildernesses, or the recesses of the mountains. So
the highest thought of our Christian influence, is that it comes with silent footfall
and refreshes men’s souls, like His, who will come down as ‘rain upon the mown grass,’
who will not strive nor cry, but in gentle omnipotence and meek persistence of love,
‘will not fail nor be discouraged till He have set judgment in the earth.’

Remember other symbols by which the same general thought of Christian
influence upon the world is set forth with very remarkable variation. ‘Ye are the
light of the world.’—‘Ye are the salt of the earth.’ The light guides and gladdens;
the salt preserves and purifies; the dew freshens and fertilises; the light, conspicuous;
the salt, working concealed; and the dew, visible like the former, but yet unobtrusive
and operating silently like the latter. Some of us had rather be light than salt;
prefer to be conspicuous rather than to diffuse a wholesome silent influence around
us. But these three types must all be blended, both in regard to the manner of working,
and in regard to the effects produced. We shall refresh and beautify the world only
in proportion as we save it from its rottenness and corruption, and we shall do
either only in proportion as we bear abroad the name of Christ, in whom is ‘life;
and the life is the light of men.’

Nor need we omit allusions to other associations connected with
this figure. The dew, formed in the silence of the darkness while men sleep, falling
as willingly on a bit of dead wood as anywhere, hanging its pearls on every poor
spike of grass, and dressing everything on which it lies with strange beauty, each
separate globule tiny and evanescent, but each flashing back the light, and each
a perfect sphere, feeble one by one, but united, mighty to make the pastures of
the wilderness rejoice—so, created in silence by an unseen influence, weak when
taken singly, but strong in their myriads, glad to occupy the lowliest place, and
each ‘bright with something of celestial light,’ Christian men and women are to
be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord.

Brethren! that characteristic, like all else which is good, belongs
to us in proportion as we keep near to Christ Jesus, and are filled with His fulness.
All these emblems which have been occupying us now, originally belonged to Him,
and we receive from Him the grace that makes us as He is in the world. He Himself
is the Warrior King, the Captain of the Lord’s host, the true Joshua, whose last
word ere His Cross was a shout of victory, ‘I have overcome the world’—whose promises
from the throne seven times crown the conqueror who overcomes as He overcame. He
makes us His soldiers and strengthens us for the war, if we live by faith in Him.
He Himself is the Priest—the only Eternal Priest of the world—who wears on His
head the mitre and the diadem, and bears in His hand the sceptre and the censer;
and He makes us priests, if faith in His only sacrifice and all-prevalent intercession
be in our souls. He is the dew unto Israel—and only by intercourse with Him shall
we be made gentle and refreshing, silent blessings to all the weary and the parched
souls in the wilderness of the world.

Everything worth being or doing comes from Jesus Christ. Heroic
courage; then hold His hand, and He will strengthen your heart. Glad surrender;
then think of His sacrifice for us until ours to Him be our answering gift. Priestly
power; then let Him bring us nigh by His blood, that we too may be able to have
compassion on the ignorant and to draw them to God. Dewy purity and freshness; then
open your hearts for the reception of His grace, for all the invigoration that we
can impart to the world is but the communication of that refreshing wherewith we
ourselves are refreshed of Christ. In every aspect of our relations to the world,
we draw all our fitness for all our offices from that Lord, who is and gives everything
that we can be or do. Then let us seek by humble faith and habitual contact with
Him and His truth, to have our emptiness filled by His fulness, and our unfitness
made ready for all service by His all-sufficiency.

And let me close by reiterating what I have said already. There
is a twofold manner of subjection—the spurious and the real. The involuntary is
nought; the glad and cheerful surrender alone is counted submission. This psalm
shows us Christ surrounded by His friends who are glad to obey. But it also shows
us Christ ruling in the midst of His enemies. They cannot help obeying; His dominion
is established over them, but they do not wish to have Him to reign over them, and
therefore they are enemies—even though they be subjects. Which is it with you,
my brother? Do you serve because you love—and love because He died for you? or
do you serve because you must? Then, remember, constrained service is no service;
and subjects without loyalty are rebel traitors. Our psalm shows us Christ gathering
His army in array. He is calling each of us to a place there, in this day of His
power, and day of His grace. Take heed lest the day of His power should for you
darken into that other day of which this psalm speaks—the day of His wrath, when
He strikes through kings, and bruises the head over many countries. Put your trust
in that Saviour, my friend! cleave to that Sacrifice, then you will not be amongst
those whom He treads down in His march to victory, but one of that happy band of
priestly warriors who follow Him as He goes forth ‘conquering and to conquer.’